Battle for Azeroth Developer Interviews, WoW History

[chaud]

Developer Interview - Slootbag
Slootbag had a live interview with lead encounter designer Morgan Day. Here are the highlights:

• While the first row of Azerite options gives one option per spec, some of these options will involve spells shared between specs and so would be an option for both.
• Azerite armor choices will be able to be respecced, but it is unknown how often.
• There is a possibility for one-off legendaries in BfA.
• Islands will be supported and updated post launch to be relevant the entire expansion.
• Tyrannical and Fortified affixes are being moved to level 2.
• The team is discussing the possibility of affixes that are "kiss-curse" such as the Rage Zone ability seen in Deadmines where mobs take and deal more damage inside of it.
• The group finder will be updated so that you can search for Mythic +'s by level.
• The team is happy with the item level of mythic + rewards in Legion.
• The team has talked about having "ahead of the curve" achievements and seasons for Mythic + achievements (completing a +15)
• One of the purposes of Uldir was trying to figure out how to kill an Old God without killing the host in the process.
• Raids will release on a schedule similar to Legion.
• Queen Azshara is the "Gul'dan" of Bfa, meaning she will likely be the final boss of the raid after Uldir.
• The best Azerite abilities and unique trinkets are found in Mythic raiding. This is the incentive to raid when tier is gone.
• The team wants to have unique abilities for each class and moments for them to shine in encounters.
• Raid encounters that require a specific class will only show up in Mythic raids.
• There will be another faction in BfA that has mini game world quests like the Kirin Tor in Legion.

Wowchakra Interview with Battle for Azeroth Devs
Wowchaka sat down with the WoW devs to discuss Battle for Azeroth. Here are the highlights:

• The team has some other ideas for the Advanced AI but wants to see how players react to it in Island Expeditions first.
• Anything implemented to NPC models (such as upright forsaken) could be implemented for player models in the future. There is nothing to announce now.
• There will be cinematic for the burning of Teldrassil and the Battle for Lordaeron.
• There may be more hidden mounts in BfA. The team loves watching the community come together to solve these puzzles.
• If the team adds an Allied Race that is defined by a certain weapon then they might add Heritage weapons for the race.
• Level scaling and the changes that came with it was a way to make leveling more enjoyable to new players.

Vanion Interview with Battle for Azeroth Devs
Vanion sat down with the WoW devs to discuss Battle for Azeroth. Here are the highlights:

• The team is aware of the faction imbalance of hardcore raiding guilds. They have some ideas on how to solve this, but nothing to announce yet.
• Racials will be adjusted if they are found to be overpowered.
• There are no plans for a sub-class feature.
• As you dive into the lore of Zandalari troll and Kul Tiran druids you will learn that their form of druidism is distinct from the existing races.
• Making cool druid forms is important because druids don't display their gear as frequently as everyone else.
• There will not be crazy big numbers for Azerite like there was for Artifact Power.
• The 77 days between patches was pure coincidence.

Buffed Interview with Battle for Azeroth Devs
Buffed sat down with the WoW devs to discuss Battle for Azeroth. Here are the highlights:

• Warfronts will be up for testing on the Alpha soon.
• Warfront rewards will be updated over the expansion to encourage people to participate.
• There will not be a weekly cap on Azerite.

Gamereactor Interview with Battle for Azeroth Devs
Gamereactor sat down with the WoW devs to discuss Battle for Azeroth. Here are the highlights:

• Allied races are meant to feel like a prestigious reward for earning the faction's trust.
• Island expeditions are meant to be about the sense of exploration.

GamerBraves Interview with Battle for Azeroth Devs
GamerBraves sat down with the WoW devs to discuss Battle for Azeroth. Here are the highlights:

• The team still believes that when an expansion first launches the best way to experience it is on the ground. They have learned a lot from Warlords and Legion's flying and will use what they learned for flying in Bfa.
• Survival Hunter and Demonology warlocks are the two specs that got the most reworks in BfA.
• There might be Island Expeditions in the future that have more than 3 players.

Xorothian Cultists Channel Cast Time
Our good friend Simca recently posted an explanation for the Cultists channeling that has recently been speculated about.

The duration between the Cultists channel end dates is just the largest value of milliseconds the game can hold, and for exactly half of that time, the game masks the channeling cast from the player because it thinks the channeling time is negative. Blizzard is not directly controlling any of these values intentionally, as such any events "connected" to these casts is entirely coincidental, and the community shouldn't get hyped when they restart casting.

This Week in WoW History
We're taking a look back at old MMO-Champion posts and World of Warcraft news that occurred during this time in previous years.

Crabby: The Dungeon Helper
Besides the yearly April Fools Patch Notes, Blizzard also made a few funny announcements each year. In 2011, Crabby: The Dungeon Helper was announced. This new feature would guide players through dungeons to ensure their success. This would be especially helpful in the new dungeon, the Tomb of Immortal Darkness, where it was always dark, and players could only see a very limited range. As it turns out this Deep Dark technology ended up being used six years later, on Mythic Kil’jaeden.

Hearthstone: The MMO
After the great success Hearthstone had, it was time to announce the new 3D game world based on the card game. Hearthstone The MMO would feature all of our favorite characters, and give players a chance to plunge into a World of War to face all kinds of foes. This announcement was of course the 2016 April Fools joke accompanied by the Frostdoge Clan faction set to be added to Warlords of Draenor. This new faction has new mounts, trinkets, toys, and pets. In return players just need to collect Chunks of Dogestone throughout Draenor.

Remote Guild Chat
A Guild Chat App was announced in 2011, with the promise of an app that gave players a chance to read and write in guild chat from their phones. This app also had a few cool features for its time, such as access to the in-game calendar to view events, and the list of online players. This was the first iteration of the app, leading to the development of the World of Warcraft Armory app, which had many additional features, and is still available for download.

Scholomance Revamp
Last article we mentioned the revamp of the Scarlet Monastery. Scholomance is the second dungeon which was revamped for Mists of Pandaria. The entire zone got updated art and increased texture resolution. Some of the bosses also got a complete revamp to their toolkit, and some got their position in the dungeon changed.

Forging Gorehowl
The Warcraft Youtube channel released a video featuring Tony Swatton and the forging of the Gorehowl axe. With Warlords of Draenor approaching, it was the perfect time to forge the most iconic Orc weapon in the game.

Street Art
In 2016, a few urban artists from ARTtitude took to the streets of London to share some Warcraft art with the world. Four Night Elf themed murals war painted along Great Eastern Street, each with a different style. The artists were also scheduled to travel to Amsterdam and Paris for a murloc and orc themed event.

Overwatch: Alive
The second animated short tells the story of Widowmaker. When playing her on King’s Row, she will say “Ah, the site of one of my finest kills. That day, I felt alive.” This refers to the assassination of Mondatta, the story of which is told in the short. As with the previous short, we get exciting combat and special effects combined with a great story.

[korijenkins]

Disappointment inc

[tkioz]

The best Azerite abilities and unique trinkets are found in Mythic raiding. This is the incentive to raid when tier is gone.

Didn't they say that the same named Azerite armour would have the same abilities, just of a different ilevel? Are they now going back on that because if so that's shit. I don't want to end up farming the same raid 4 times a week.

[Dalexian]

The best Azerite abilities and unique trinkets are found in Mythic raiding. This is the incentive to raid when tier is gone.

Didn't they say that the same named Azerite armour would have the same abilities, just of a different ilevel? Are they now going back on that because if so that's shit. I don't want to end up farming the same raid 4 times a week.

It could simply imply that Mythic has a different loot table. It's not unprecedented that loot would change between difficulties.

Also, they caved on the respeccing of armor, so everyone should be great with the system now. Right?

[Redzonetode]

If the team adds an Allied Race that is defined by a certain weapon then they might add Heritage weapons for the race.

Fucking hell. Just add the nightborne and void elf weapons that are already IN THE GAME FILES

[Rukario]

If the team adds an Allied Race that is defined by a certain weapon then they might add Heritage weapons for the race.

Fucking hell. Just add the nightborne and void elf weapons that are already IN THE GAME FILES

Exactly...also the other armor tints, i don't get why the fk are they holding out on those.

[Dracullus]

The best Azerite abilities and unique trinkets are found in Mythic raiding. This is the incentive to raid when tier is gone.

Didn't they say that the same named Azerite armour would have the same abilities, just of a different ilevel? Are they now going back on that because if so that's shit. I don't want to end up farming the same raid 4 times a week.

It was kinda clear for me that different pieces have different traits, but Normal/Heroic/Mythic version of same item will have same traits with only increased item level. This way they could make specific set of traits that are best for open world/pvp/mythic+/raids.

I don't think Mythic raids pieces will have different traits than same piece on LFR/Normal/Heroic. It's same as trinkets, they don't make unique trinkets for Mythic raiding. Only difference is that Azurite armor is outside titanforging system - so you will have to earn it in mythic raid (personally I like titanforging, but I think it should go up only to current Heroic raid item level)

[Kaesebrezen]

The best Azerite abilities and unique trinkets are found in Mythic raiding. This is the incentive to raid when tier is gone.

Didn't they say that the same named Azerite armour would have the same abilities, just of a different ilevel? Are they now going back on that because if so that's shit. I don't want to end up farming the same raid 4 times a week.

Because the summary seems off. What's been said is more like:

- Raids will have unique azerite pieces (probably unique traits) and trinkets (as always)
- Mythic+ rankings were dominated by set bonuses and raid trinkets
- Mythic raiders had the best gear on live, and they want to keep it that way.

[Hyral]

While the first row of Azerite options gives one option per spec, some of these options will involve spells shared between specs and so would be an option for both.

So that crap was by design and not just placeholder? Boy, Azerite armor sure is shaping up to be as bad as expected.

[fishoa]

Level scaling and the changes that came with it was a way to make leveling more enjoyable to new players.

lmao

[baseballfan]

"While the first row of Azerite options gives one option per spec, some of these options will involve spells shared between specs and so would be an option for both." This is like saying you can either choose between an actual dps increase or something like Death and decay now heals you. Absolutely ridiculous. They think that the other options actually give more options for customization.

- - - Updated - - -

"Island expeditions are meant to be about the sense of exploration." How? you aren't exploring anything. You are teleported to a Island with random affixes. It's not exploration.

[Korru]

"Island expeditions are meant to be about the sense of exploration." How? you aren't exploring anything. You are teleported to a Island with random affixes. It's not exploration.

Island expeditions will get old as fast as Invasion points.

[Silver Forte]

Level scaling and the changes that came with it was a way to make leveling more enjoyable to new players.

lmao

I think the level scaling is fine in essence but there really needs to be tweaks made. They clearly didn't test it thoroughly and the more you level, the more that becomes apparent. Some examples would be...

1) I was leveling a shadow priest. By 40, the pace slowed to a crawl as it took several rotations to kill most mobs. By 55 I was falling asleep. Every dungeon I run, I check recount and if there's a shadow priest, he's in last place. This of course was around 40-50.

2) Some quest mobs aren't tuned properly. Stitches comes to mind. Takes too long to kill and hits way too hard. Several instances of this have occurred in my experience.

3) Forget killing rares in Draenor. It's just not worth it. It's possible but not easy solo and the reward is measly. For some reason, the experience reward for killing rares doesn't get higher as it should after 1-80.

4) Dungeon bosses take too long to kill. They don't hit hard, it's not hard to kill them, they're just miserably boring. Standing there doing your rotation for 2-3 minutes on a pre-end game boss is horrible.

5) XP rewards need to be buffed in certain areas. Mobs should give like 5% more experience per kill after 30-40. Dungeon bosses definitely should be giving more experience. Questing rewards are trash. I did 10 or so quests in Outland at level 70. Turned them all in. What did I get? I went from 65% to next level to 75%. That's horseshit. It took me about 20 minutes of work to do those quests and what I got was 10% experience. At this point I found out you can just solo BC heroics and fly to 80 so I gave up on questing.

6) There need to be world quests everywhere. I'm not sure why they didn't add these to Outland, Northrend and Vanilla zones. Kinda doesn't make sense if you're gonna revamp the leveling system and ignore one of the methods people use to offset the boredom of leveling post-WoD. It reminds me of Guild Wars 2's system where you just walk around, do shit and get experience. It's fun and helps take some of the boredom out of leveling->dungeons. Add that third element.

7) Group quests used to be very easy to solo. Now they're fucking impossible. There's a 3 person quest in Frostfire on Draenor. As a warrior, I was 2 shot by the mob. I get the desired requirement for grouping to do this quest, but 2 shots? There is no way that was tested.

Kinda no brainers, but blizzard has shown a pattern of laziness and lack of throughput in the past, as well as overcompensating. There just is no middle ground with them.

[tkioz]

Because the summary seems off. What's been said is more like:

- Raids will have unique azerite pieces (probably unique traits) and trinkets (as always)
- Mythic+ rankings were dominated by set bonuses and raid trinkets
- Mythic raiders had the best gear on live, and they want to keep it that way.

Okay that's fine then. From how the summery was worded it seemed like mythic gear would have different traits, which seemed at odds with their stated goal.

[fishoa]

snip

This new leveling is so garbage. It takes so damn long and nothing gives great experience except PvP: a win is usually 50% of a level at 60-80, also known as the death bracket, where alts go to die. Sucks that to get the +%XP PvP trinkets, you need to grind Gurubashi Arena and Darkmoon Faire Arena (13 times each). Nobody got time for that.

All I've been doing since I dinged 60 is queueing up for Ramparts and Shattered Halls while at the same time queueing up for a Random BG. Pretty much doing the same as before, but it takes a lot more time and it's much more boring. Thanks, Blizzard. At least once I get to 72, I can grind Karazhan and get this over with.

If I was a new player, and we sure don't have those anymore as everybody already played this game at least once, I'd quit once I hit level 40, as as you said, leveling gets real slow. Even if I made through 60, the next 20 levels are soul crushing because XP gain is severely reduced and players simply don't get enough abilities or talents as they used to in the 20-60 bracket.

If the end-game is where all the fun is and lore simply doesn't matter anymore as it's pretty much fanservice at this point, why slow down leveling?

$$$.

[kaintk]

The team still believes that when an expansion first launches the best way to experience it is on the ground. They have learned a lot from Warlords and Legion's flying and will use what they learned for flying in Bfa.

here we go, months of boring stuff of awaiting to come, and it make me lmao to see that they think what a lot of players really want, lot of us just want to fly when max level is gain, not wait months and months on their spiral mountain :P

and by the way no solution about the dk hoping to not be let down;p

devs boring like always

[Nevcairiel]

The best Azerite abilities and unique trinkets are found in Mythic raiding. This is the incentive to raid when tier is gone.

Didn't they say that the same named Azerite armour would have the same abilities, just of a different ilevel? Are they now going back on that because if so that's shit. I don't want to end up farming the same raid 4 times a week.

Not sure where you quoted that from, but it seems to have been reworded above to generally say its an incentive for raiding, with the best version (ie. ilvl) coming from Mythic.

[DesoPL]

When it comes to scalling, most affected is Draenor. Mob on 92 level got 900K HP... it is an joke? And oh yay legendaries actually are back...

[Silver Forte]

This new leveling is so garbage. It takes so damn long and nothing gives great experience except PvP: a win is usually 50% of a level at 60-80, also known as the death bracket, where alts go to die. Sucks that to get the +%XP PvP trinkets, you need to grind Gurubashi Arena and Darkmoon Faire Arena (13 times each). Nobody got time for that.

All I've been doing since I dinged 60 is queueing up for Ramparts and Shattered Halls while at the same time queueing up for a Random BG. Pretty much doing the same as before, but it takes a lot more time and it's much more boring. Thanks, Blizzard. At least once I get to 72, I can grind Karazhan and get this over with.

If I was a new player, and we sure don't have those anymore as everybody already played this game at least once, I'd quit once I hit level 40, as as you said, leveling gets real slow. Even if I made through 60, the next 20 levels are soul crushing because XP gain is severely reduced and players simply don't get enough abilities or talents as they used to in the 20-60 bracket.

If the end-game is where all the fun is and lore simply doesn't matter anymore as it's pretty much fanservice at this point, why slow down leveling?

$$$.

I don't see how someone who's new, who knows nothing about leveling routes, boss mechanics, dungeon paths or really anything, and without heirlooms, could level to 110 in this without themselves being some sort of fanatic for grinding.

[MyndZero]

even respeccing is a convoluted option, because what, you need to change your character spec, and THREE pieces of armor's specs depending on if you're raiding, doing m+ (and also what dungeon it is). You could be respeccing it so damn option it's actually a pain.

This is actually a worse system than the netherlight crucible. I can't believe what I'm reading. They somehow managed to make a system worse than that?!